From Robin Hood
Revolutionary to Modern Reformer

The Rawlings story has so much high drama that its intriguing twists and turns could form the basis of a Ramboesque Hollywood epic.

Born in Accra in 1947 to a Ghanaian mother and a Scottish father, Jerry Rawlings joined the Ghanaian Air Force as a flying cadet at the age of 20. Two years later he won a "best pilot" trophy. Throughout the 1970s, he says, he observed with increasing impatience the social and political decline in Ghana and the deterioration of discipline and morale in the military leadership. At one point, he admits, he assembled a team of soldiers with the idea of staging armed robberies to take their proceeds from the "constitutionally protected" thieves and returning it to the "poor and exploited".

Eventually, in May 1979, he staged an abortive coup against what he regarded as a corrupt and incompetent Supreme Military Council. Leading a band of fellow airmen and soldiers, he captured ten senior army and air force officers, briefly holding them hostage. It was a fearless if foolhardy escapade. The army retaliated, an air force officer was killed as the mutiny was quelled and Lieutenant Rawlings was captured, imprisoned and court-martialled.

During his trial, even the prosecutor declared that the flight-lieutenant's principal motivation had been a desire to clear up "corruption in high places" and to investigate the "nefarious activities" of businessmen who were "growing fat" at the expense of the starving masses.

People inside and outside the court warmed to the defendant and three weeks later, before a verdict had been reached, another coup was staged, this time successfully. Rawlings, the hero of the hour, was freed from his prison cell to become leader of the supreme revolutionary council.

Within weeks three former heads of state and five other senior figures were executed by firing squad, planned elections were held and, in September, Lieutenant Rawlings handed over power to the new civilian president, Dr Hilla Limann.

But the economic mismanagement and political incompetence continued and 18 months later, by now forcibly retired from the air force, Rawlings led another coup. This time it was a bloodless one, and he established a provisional national defence council comprising both civilian and military members and with himself at its head. The first years of the council's rule were marred by intimidation and violence as many old scores were settled. The economy was run down to the extent it was at the point of bankruptcy. However, among his other attributes, the President has an ability to adapt to changing circumstances and, faced with few alternatives, and nudged by the World Bank and western donor nations, he evolved rapidly from a left-wing revolutionary into a market-driven reformer.

From 1986, President Rawlings began a structural adjustment programme, turning much of the State-controlled economy over to the private sector. He instituted a constitutional assembly to draft a new constitution, lifted the ban on party politics in 1992 and, later that year, staged a presidential election from which he emerged the winner. Four years later he won the second term that ends in December.

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